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An interview with Ryan Britt, the author of The Spice Must Flow, about Dune’s once-covert climate change message.
For someone who’s been hit by the Dune curse, author Ryan Britt was in good spirits when I spoke to him about his new book, The Spice Must Flow: The Story of Dune, from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies, on Friday. “It has to be something, always,” he told me brightly, in reference to the second installment of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation — to which last week’s release of The Spice Must Flow had been loosely tied — getting delayed to next year due to the Hollywood strikes. Still, Britt winces at himself when he remembers he’s called Dune: Part Two a “2023 film” in print.
I imagine, though, that Britt’s readers will forgive him. The Spice Must Flow is a wonderfully enjoyable companion guide to Dune, including for people who aren’t really that deep into Arrakis lore (or haven’t, like me, read beyond Frank Herbert’s first book). Touching on everything from the nonfiction magazine article that was the earliest version of Dune, to the turbulent attempts to adapt the novel into a film, Britt also gives welcome space to how Herbert’s sandworm-populated, drugged-up sci-fi saga serves as “an ecological guide to the future.” Our conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.
Where were you when you learned Dune: Part Two was being pushed back?
I was getting ready to make my six-year-old daughter dinner with my wife. I shouldn’t say that I was making dinner — I think my wife was getting ready to make dinner and I was helping and hanging out with my daughter. And I got a text from my literary agent just saying, “Had you seen this?”
But you know, I had seen the rumors that it was potentially going to happen. And just from an entertainment industry/publishing standpoint, it’s the most Dune thing that could possibly happen. I was joking with many people that writing a book about Dune is like — I'm entering into a world that was very hard for David Lynch and very hard for Frank Herbert and [Alejandro] Jodorowsky and Denis Villeneuve. Something always happens to people who are doing Dune projects. It was like, “Okay, so I don’t get to have a book out at the same time as the movie? I’m getting off easy compared to Lynch, who lost like four years of his life or whatever.”
You write that “the public perception of Dune as an ecological science fiction novel is perhaps the most important factor in its immortality.” But as you note in your book, Herbert didn’t exactly set out to write an ecological science fiction book. How did Dune gain the reputation of environmental literature that it has today?
I want to be careful about this because I think that it’s possible that Frank Herbert did have that intention. He dedicated the first novel to “dry land ecologists.” He began writing a nonfiction article about real sand dunes, and that led to writing Dune. I just don’t think that environmentalism was his sole intention or his sole motivating factor in completing the first book. By evidence in my research and the research of others, he played up that [intention] after it was claimed by environmentalists.
The big thing that happened is Stewart Brand’s The Whole Earth Catalog in 1968 picked Dune as an ecological text, and then Frank Herbert spoke at Earth Day in 1970. I actually brought with me as a prop the New World or No World (1970) book, which was based on a TV special Herbert did. [Reading from the book’s cover:] “‘Our ecology crisis and what to do about it,’ edited by Frank Herbert.” So this is where, by the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, Herbert really starts saying Dune was an ecological book.
And that’s definitely in the text. But at the same time, the planet ecologist who is the father of Liet-Kynes, Pardot Kynes — all of that is from the appendices that are in the novel but weren’t in the original serialized magazine versions. A lot of the big ecological ruminations are sort of covert in the first run. But even in New World or No World, where Herbert talks about putting the words of ecological concern into the mouths of his characters — that’s from the appendices. So I think that he was always throwing down a message about climate change and a message about how corrupt governments contribute to that, but he wasn’t talking that up in ‘63 and ‘65, when the first versions of the book came out. But by 1968, ‘69, ‘70, he certainly was, because the Whole Earth Catalog thing happened and I think environmentalists were clearly his people in a way that, perhaps, other science fiction writers were not.
Do you think that part of the reason Dune had mainstream success was because this environmental interpretation made it seem like more “serious” literature to readers who might not have picked up a sci-fi book otherwise?
Yes, absolutely. The reason why Dune is mainstream is because of the ecological messaging. And that’s not just true of the first novel, which is by far and away the most popular, but the thing also about Herbert is that he makes good on the idea that Dune is an ecological series in the sequels.
By the time we get to Children of Dune(1976), he has a very interesting message about climate change, which is that the sandworms are an endangered species but they’re also essential to the economy because they create the spice — the spice is an allegory for all natural resources that power transportation. So some of the best ecological messaging comes out of the sequels. Children of Dune was the first hardcover bestseller science fiction novel — in terms of being marketed as a science fiction novel — of all time. And in that book is when Herbert says, look, not only does climate change and ignoring climate change have a negative effect on our environment, but it has a negative effect on the economy as well.
Children of Dune is when Arrakis has been terraformed, like forced climate change. But it’s the reverse from us because instead of turning it into a worse environment, they’re actually making it more livable. But that is the thing that’s actually against the existing environment, and the thing that’s going to threaten to kill the sandworms and disrupt everything. So Herbert inverts the literalness by saying, Okay, this kind of forced climate change seemed like a great idea, one that the Fremen wanted, to transform it into a paradise. But now here we are, two books later, and not that much time has passed, and we’re looking at the extinction of the sandworms and the collapse of everything.
The environmental movement in the U.S. has changed a lot since Frank Herbert died in 1986. Were he still alive today, do you think he’d still be writing books with environmental themes? Or was it a passing fancy when it came to Dune?
No, no, he certainly would be. Absolutely. You could look at books like The Green Brain, and some of his other books, and definitely it’s there.
It’s interesting because you look at someone like Elon Musk — we all know there’s a political problem with Musk more broadly, and he’s almost like a character from Dune. Because he’s like, “I’m going to create all these electric vehicles,” but at what cost, right? Herbert was interested in political figures — Musk wouldn’t think of himself as a political figure, but he is — and the people with power who people don’t question. If we all agree that electric cars are good, then that would be Musk, right? But Musk is like Leto II, the God Emperor of Dune, and Leto II has ulterior motives in the end but so many people have to die to get there. So I think that if you could have Frank Herbert alive to see what’s going on with Elon Musk, he’d be like, “This is exactly what I was talking about.”
Is there anything else you’d like Heatmap readers to know about Dune?
What is really cool about Dune when it comes to its ecological messaging is that, like all good art, it is not an after-school special. That allows it to sink in more effectively. The irony that I point out in my book is that New World or No World is essentially an after-school special — it was literally on TV as a segment of people talking about the whole problem of climate change. [Reading from the book:] “I refuse to be put in a position of telling my grandchildren: ‘Sorry, there’s no world for you. We’ve used it all up.’ —Frank Herbert.” He is an environmentalist. But this book is not in print, and Dune is.
So why is Dune in print when we have to find that messaging? Because we have to find it: It’s not flashing on a giant sign like in Avatar or something like that. It’s not turning to the camera.
You look at something like Dune and you’ve got 60 years of people talking about it and thinking about it. And the “thinking about it” part is essential because people won’t change their minds with, like, a TV special. They will change their minds with a novel. A novel, a story, can move people.
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Breakthrough Energy is winding down its policy and advocacy office, depriving the Inflation Reduction Act of a powerful defender.
A major chapter in climate giving has ended.
Breakthrough Energy, the climate philanthropy organization founded by Bill Gates, is closing its policy and advocacy office and has laid off much of its staff in Washington, D.C., Heatmap News has learned.
The layoffs will effectively gut an organization central to the effort to enact the package of clean energy tax cuts passed during the Biden administration. They will also silence one of the few environmental nonprofits that supported nuclear energy, direct air capture, and other new zero-carbon energy innovations.
More than three dozen employees across the United States and Europe are affected by the layoffs, including the office’s senior leadership.
The layoffs, first reported by The New York Times, come amid a wider billionaire pullback from donating to climate causes. The president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund departed last month, and the fund has yet to name a permanent replacement. Gates had already significantly diminished his climate giving earlier this year, slashing Breakthrough Energy’s grantmaking budget last month.
Gates’s investments in clean energy companies do not seem affected by the cutback. Breakthrough Energy’s venture capital and investment arm, its fellows program, and its efforts to catalyze new green products remain intact.
“Gates and Breakthrough Energy remain committed to advancing the clean energy innovations needed to address climate change,” a Breakthrough Energy spokesperson told me in a statement. “Our work is focused on accelerating the transition to a cleaner, more prosperous world."
The closure of Breakthrough’s policy arm — and the presumed end of its grant-making operation — will alter the world of climate nonprofits. Breakthrough Energy was unusual among environmental and energy nonprofits for its enthusiastic support of all forms of zero-carbon energy, including nuclear fission, geothermal power, carbon capture and removal, and nuclear fusion. Many other prominent nonprofits — even some that have shifted to principally fighting against climate change, like the Sierra Club — are more traditional and conservation-minded, and actively oppose the expansion of nuclear power.
“The closure of Breakthrough is indicative of a broader trend that often happens when there’s a change in power in Washington, which is a retreat from federal policy and also often a retreat from the center,” Josh Freed, the senior vice president for climate and energy at Third Way, told me. The Third Way energy team was funded in part by grants from Breakthrough Energy.
“Breakthrough played a critical role in elevating and making clean energy innovation policy very mainstream. That’s going to continue — in part because of … the partners who they brought together, who remain committed to working on this,” Freed added.
The unwinding of Breakthrough Energy’s policy and advocacy arm means that the group will not see the coming battle over the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean tax cuts, which some Republican lawmakers hope to repeal later this year as part of President Trump’s broader package of tax cuts. Gates was seen as instrumental to the lobbying effort to pass the IRA, meeting with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and other lawmakers to support the 2022 legislation.
In an exclusive interview with Heatmap News in 2023, Gates warned that re-electing Donald Trump could derail the Inflation Reduction Act’s effectiveness.
“Right now, companies are responding to the IRA incentives. But you know, if you get Trump elected, and he really gets rid of it, there’s a lot of business plans that will [make people] feel foolish,” he said.
Even if Democrats ultimately enact new provisions similar to the IRA after Trump leaves office, Gates said, the damage of repealing the law would be permanent. “People [will] say, ‘Well, you’re asking me to make a 30-year investment. And half the time, I’m stupid.’”
Just over a year and one election later, Gates reportedly had a more than three-hour dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He later told Emma Tucker, The Wall Street Journal’s editor in chief, that he was “frankly impressed” by the president-elect.
Tesla already looked beleaguered last week as a tumbling stock price tied to public anger at CEO Elon Musk wiped out more than a half-billion dollars in value. The slide erased all the gains the company had garnered since new Musk ally Donald Trump was reelected as president. On Monday the stock went into full freefall, losing 15% of its value in one day. By Tuesday, Trump had to pose with Tesla vehicles outside the White House to try to defend them.
With a crashing market valuation and rising rage against its figurehead, Tesla’s business is in real jeopardy, something that’s true regardless of Musk’s power in the federal government. If he can’t magically right the ship this time, this self-sabotaging MAGA turn will go down as one of the great self-owns.
Musk’s heel turn has also upended EV culture and meaning. Tesla ownership, once a signal of climate virtue for those who bought in early, has been rebranded as a badge of shame. I’m annoyed that a vehicle I chose for the purpose of not burning fossil fuels has become a political albatross, and that many drivers are resorting to self-flagellating bumper stickers in the hopes it will stop vandals from spray-painting their doors. I wish I knew then what we know now, of course. But what would have become of the EV revolution if we had?
When, exactly, we should have seen Elon’s true self is a question that will inspire countless arguments amid the wave of Tesla hate. Signs were there early. By 2018, before the Model 3 even hit the road, Musk had been hit by so much criticism of his bad tweets and weird behavior that the magazine I worked for at the time felt the need to publish a contrarian defense of him as just the kind of risk-taking innovator the world needs.
That angle aged like milk, but within it lay a few grains of truth. Tesla truly did the bulk of the work in transforming the image of the electric car from a dumpy potato that only climate advocates would ever own, like the original Nissan Leaf, into a desirable consumer product. This is the company’s signature achievement, one that kickstarted the widespread adoption of EVs.
As I’ve written before, Musk wasn’t exactly untainted by 2019, when I bought my own Model 3. The Tony Stark luster of the new space age entrepreneur had worn off as the man sullied himself with pointless “pedo guy” accusations leveled at a rescuer in the Thailand cave incident. But the man had the best electric vehicle on the market, and more importantly, the best charging network. Having just moved to Los Angeles and in need of a vehicle, I wanted an EV to be my family’s only car. Without a home charger in the apartment, I simply couldn’t have lived with a Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona EV and the inferior charging networks they relied on at the time.
Millions of people who bought Teslas between then and now made the same choice. Some did it because a Tesla became a status symbol; many others were like me, simply interested in the most practical EV they could get. The ascendance of the Model Y to the world’s best-selling car of any kind in 2023 — a fact that feels astonishing in this flood of horrible vibes and MAGA antagonism just two years later — turned countless people into EV drivers.
After Musk’s far-right reveal, sales are tanking in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and other places that just saw a Tesla boom. Many owners, at least those with the financial wherewithal to buy a new car based on the prevailing political winds, are trying to unload their Musk-affiliated vehicles.
All those people in search of a new ride have a much better selection of electric vehicles to choose from than I did in 2019, which, weirdly, is thanks to the legacy carmakers and new EV startups that raced to catch up to Tesla. If I hadn’t bought a Model 3 in 2019, I would’ve had to get a hybrid and keep burning gasoline. If you want to avoid Musk in 2025, there are great Hyundai, Chevrolet, and other EVs waiting for you.
This isn’t to say there’s no alternate history where electric vehicles take off without Tesla. It didn’t invent the EV. Other automakers were experimenting with EVs before Musk’s company took off and conquered the market, and government environmental goals pushed carmakers toward electrification. Yet it’s hard to argue we’d be where we are now, with tens of millions of EVs on the world’s roads, without the meteoric rise of Musk’s car brand.
It stinks, simply put, to say anything nice about Tesla now, even if one is stating facts. Yes, Musk’s success buoyed electrification on multiple fronts: selling tons of EVs, forcing the other automakers to get serious about their electrification goals, and building a charging network that let his vehicles go just about anywhere a gas car would go. It also made him the world’s richest man, giving him the resources to buy and ruin Twitter and then help Trump get re-elected and undo federal policy support for the very cars he helped popularize. He made the world a better place for a moment, then ruined it because he could.
As an EV advocate, I can’t ignore the fact that Tesla got us to here. But as a human, I eagerly await the time Musk’s company no longer dominates the market it created. Thank goodness, that time seems to be coming soon.
On Lee Zeldin’s announcement, coal’s decline, and Trump’s Tesla promo
Current conditions: Alaska just had its third-warmest winter on record • Spain’s four-year drought is nearing an end • Another atmospheric river is bearing down on the West Coast, triggering evacuation warnings around Los Angeles’ burn scars.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said yesterday he had terminated $20 billion in congressionally-approved climate change and clean energy grants “following a comprehensive review and consistent with multiple ongoing independent federal investigations into programmatic fraud, waste, abuse and conflicts of interest.”
The grants were issued to a handful of nonprofits through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was the single largest and most flexible program in the Inflation Reduction Act. Zeldin has been targeting the funds since taking office, suggesting they were awarded hastily and without proper oversight. Citibank, where the funds were being held, has frozen the accounts without offering grantees an explanation, prompting lawsuits from three of the nonprofit groups. The EPA’s latest move will no doubt escalate the legal battles. As Politicoexplained, the EPA can cancel the grant contracts if it can point to specific and “legally defined examples of waste, fraud, and abuse by the grantees,” but it hasn’t done that. House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation yesterday into the EPA’s freezing of the funds and Zeldin’s “false and misleading statements” about the GGRF program.
In other EPA news, the agency reportedly plans to eliminate its environmental justice offices, a move that “effectively ends three decades of work at the EPA to try to ease the pollution that burdens poor and minority communities,” as The New York Timesexplained.
President Trump’s 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports came into effect today. As Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo has explained, the move could work against Trump’s plans of making America a leader in energy and artificial intelligence. “The reason has to do with a crucial piece of electrical equipment for expanding the grid,” Pontecorvo wrote. “They’re called transformers, and they’re in critically short supply.” Transformers are made using a specific type of steel called grain oriented electrical steel, or GOES. There’s only one domestic producer of GOES — Cleveland Cliffs — and at full capacity it cannot meet even half of the demand from domestic transformer manufacturers. On a consumer level, the tariffs are likely to raise costs on all kinds of things, from cars to construction materials and even canned goods.
The European Union quickly hit back with plans to impose duties on up to $28.3 billion worth of American goods. Trump had threatened to slap an extra 25% duty on Canadian steel and aluminum in retaliation for Ontario’s 25% surcharge on electricity (which was a response to Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, including a 10% tariff on Canadian energy resources), but held off after the surcharge was paused and the countries agreed to trade talks.
Wind and solar surpassed coal for power generation in the U.S. in 2024 for the first time, even as electricity demand rose, according to energy think tank Ember. Coal power peaked in 2007 but has since fallen to an all-time low, accounting for 15% of total U.S. electricity generation last year, while combined solar and wind generation rose to 17%.
Gas generation also grew by 3.3% last year, however, now accounting for 43% of the U.S. energy mix and resulting in an overall rise in power-sector emissions. But solar grew by 27%, remaining the nation’s fastest-growing power source and rising to 7% of the mix. Wind saw a more modest 7% rise, but still still accounted for 10% of total U.S. electricity generation.
Ember
“Despite growing emissions, the carbon intensity of electricity continued to decline,” according to the report. “The rise in power demand was much faster than the rise in power sector CO2 emissions, making each unit of electricity likely the cleanest it has ever been.” The report emphasizes that the rise of batteries “will ensure that solar can grow cheaper and faster than gas.”
A group of major companies including tech giants Amazon, Google, and Meta, as well as Occidental Petroleum, have pledged to support a target of tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050 “to help achieve global goals for enhanced energy resiliency and security, and continuous firm clean energy supply.” The pledge, facilitated by the World Nuclear Association, came together on the sidelines of the energy industry’s annual CERAWeek conference in Houston. According to a press release, “this is the first time major businesses beyond the nuclear sector have come together to publicly back an extensive and concerted expansion of nuclear power to meet increasing global energy demand.”
In case you missed it: Toyota plans to roll out an electric truck for the masses by 2026. At least, that’s what can be gleaned from a presentation the company gave last week in Brussels. Details haven’t been released, but Patrick George at InsideEVsspeculates it could be an electric Tacoma, or something more akin to the 2023 EPU Concept truck, but we’ll see. “While Toyota officials stressed that the cars revealed in Belgium last week were for the European market specifically, we all know Europe doesn't love trucks the way Americans love trucks,” George wrote. “And if Toyota is serious about getting into the EV truck game alongside Chevy, Ford, Ram, Rivian and even Tesla, it could be a game-changer.”
President Trump and Elon Musk showed off Tesla vehicles on the White House lawn yesterday, with Trump (who doesn’t drive) pledging to buy one and to label violence against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism. Tesla shares rose slightly, but are still down more than 30% for the month.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images